


Lebensmüde

by Bleed_Peroxide



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, BF Angst Week 2019, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eating Disorders, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Starvation, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-05 08:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17321765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bleed_Peroxide/pseuds/Bleed_Peroxide
Summary: I'm either numb or in pain. Death by fire, death by ice.Watch the rings as they spin on my thinning fingers. Smile with glee as my stomach growls again, as the numbers slide.A part of me wonders when this limbo, this winter will end.I'm not living at this point.I'm drifting like a leaf. I want to hit a fire and burn.This series of drabbles explores the idea (and my personal interpretation/head-canon) that Ash has an eating disorder - well beyond his anorexia in Dino's mansion.Please heed the warning tags.I would advise against reading this if you know you'll be triggered by this content; it's not going to be happy.[Completed as part of #BFAngstWeek on Twitter.]





	1. Death / Forget

Ash once knew Death like an old acquaintance. A silhouette one passed routinely on the street, to whom a tip of the hat or a knowing smile might be exchanged. It was the shadow winding just around the corner, unseen but understood.      

 Death was once the rattle in one’s throat as they breathed their last, as the light left eyes turned skywards. Some days, Ash felt he could see hints of a spirit fluttering towards perdition. He had to laugh at the idea as soon as it came - given enough liquor, he was similarly convinced that the steam belching from the city gutters were borne from hell itself.   

Death was once the vacant stare of his brother, in whom resided a heartbeat but no soul. Death was once the abomination floating in a glass jar. Death was once the warm body cradled in his arms, staining them vermillion and searing the smell of pennies and salt in his nose.  

He wasn’t sure when, exactly, he had become such intimate bedfellows with Death - no longer a passing stranger, but a lingering ghost in the doorway, a shadow over his shoulder in the mirror. When Death was no longer abstraction but its name, murmuring in his ear.  

Death was an intimate lover - its scythe caressed touched-starved skin; its bony fingers kissed his skin so sweetly. It whispered saccharine yet sadistic words in his ear.  

_Worthless, vile vessel. Tainted beyond redemption. I can purify you. I can refine you._  

_Let me give you back what Dino stole._  

Death, he learned, was a journey, a heady tumble down the staircase. He imagined it was the reckless freedom a marionette felt as it clipped its own strings, unfettered even as it crumbled to a heap on the floor.  

He imagined that, had he been capable, this thing he knew as Death would feel a lot like the sensation of falling in love.  

Death was the feeling of teeth scraping his knuckles, of fingers shoved down his throat. Death was the cruel laugh that escaped him afterward, as he took in his own sorry state - bowed before the porcelain god like a supplicant, praying to whichever deaf ones remained that nobody could hear the pathetic retching. Death was the way he felt a sick thrill in his spine as he finally saw orange in the vile remains - that orange soda Eiji hated so much, but a necessary evil so he knew when he could stop.  

Sometimes he wasn’t sure when to stop. Sometimes, when he could still see the specter of Shorter’s blood on his hands, he felt it only fair that he exchanged some of his own in return. Sometimes, it was Eiji pounding on the door - “You’ve been in there forever! Is everything okay?” - that cut his ritual short.  

Death was the peculiar way that his body refused to carry warmth, the way he found himself adding layers to his clothing - sweaters, jackets, cardigans. Yet the cold carried a peculiar kind of malevolence as it clung onto his bones like claws. Death was the way his nails, once pink and healthy, turned brittle and blue like those of a corpse. He found himself close to sobbing out of frustration -  _I’m so fucking cold, I’m so fucking cold._  

His tears, at least some of them, were those of mortal terror, the primal knowledge in which chill and death were intertwined entities. He knew this fact down to his very bones and viscera, feared it the way an animal might…. even as his mind flirted with Death like a coquettish girl.   

Death was the way in which he began to measure himself in negative spaces, in the way he disappeared into the very air around him. Death was the vanity that made this vanishing act feel exquisite - were he an actor, were he wishing to be seen, he would have bowed theatrically before the crowd.  

It was so deliciously selfish that he held its secret to his chest, like a child with a prized trinket.  

_Nobody can take this from me. Nobody can make my body do this but me._  

He held his fingers tightly against one another, marveling as the gaps between them increased. He held his fingers against his ribcage, finding childish glee at how perfectly his fingers fit into the indents that grew by the day, as the space between a forefinger and thumb encircled around his wrist grew larger.  

“You’ve lost weight,” Max remarked with a furrowed brow, and oh god, Death was the sinful satisfaction that flooded his chest, as though being caught red-handed with a lover.  

Death was in the way he bit his cheeks to hide a pleased smile, the way he feigned nonchalance.  

Death was the surety of the thought at that moment that, if he were to tell Max, he could receive help.  

A quiet voice, pitiful in its optimism, added, “You could get help before it gets worse.”  

Death was the way he stepped on this rebellious act of self-preservation, crushing it like a bug under his heel. He instead cradled the Reaper’s ever-grinning skull in his hands and kissed it soundly on the mandible.  

Death was the way in which he, ever the prostitute, offered his body for the promise it offered.  

At least Death was honest; it gave _precisely_ what it offered.  

Death was the way the numbers on the scale spiraled downward, as though tumbling backward in time. Death was the way that his vision carried greyness in the corners like a badly-tuned TV, and in the way that his body struggled to emerge from sleep.  

Death, he reasoned, was a selfish lover. Holding him so tenderly in sleep, it was reluctant to let him go so easily. He was reminded of Eiji, in a way - Eiji had a similar clinginess.  

Death was the irregular and sluggish beat of his heart, the way he would hold a hand to his chest as though reminding it of how to beat properly.  

Death was a slow, staggering lurch through the day. Death was the sharp, acidic talons of hunger in his stomach; death was the way in which his body pleaded for relief and the way that he sneered at the weakness of his own vessel and denied it every time.  

Death looked down its proverbial nose as two sides of Ash struggled on the floor.  

Death looked on as one Ash, starved and defiant like a mongrel, wraps his bony hands around the throat of another Ash - calm and beautiful like an archangel. Even with his face littered in bruises, this Ash looked up at the crazed reflection of himself, desperately choking him with hands too weak to do any real damage.  

"Why won't you fucking  _die_?"  

“Why are you so desperate to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Lebensmüde_ literally translates as "life-tired". It either means you do such risky things that you clearly don't care for your own safety, or that you've entered a deep, physical state of not-caring.
> 
> This is Banana Fish **Angst** Week - it's not going to be happy, and it's not going to _get_ happier, unfortunately. If you're looking for a story about him recovering, this isn't going to be it. This is dipping into the waters of his psyche; it's not going to turn into a long-winded exploration of his eating disorder. That, I feel, would be a topic for another fic that isn't "constrained" (for lack of a better term) to fitting within certain prompts. 
> 
> The opening line in the summary is something that comes from my own journal way back when. Suffice it to say that some of the ways Ash frames things are based on my own understanding of how eating disorders work and make you think. I'm not the end-all, be-all voice for how EDs work. 
> 
> At the end of the day, though, bear in mind that mental illnesses (including EDs) don't give a fuck about your age, gender, race, socio-economic status, sexual orientation - none of that.


	2. Tears / Photographs

There was a black serpent coiling in Ash, staring back at Eiji through Ash’s eyes. It was a wicked devil, quiet and calculating, a viper in their Garden of Eden. It looked straight at Eiji through the filter of emerald, speaking through Ash’s lips, pulling them into a smile as though using invisible strings.    

The devil sneered at Eiji, running a finger tenderly along Ash’s neck as though daring Eiji to stop him. With a raunchy smile, it held Eiji’s gaze as a single nail drew blood, as it lapped at the crimson flow like a cat.   

_Aren’t you going to stop me?_  

_Can you?_  

All the while, Ash stood stock-still. He flinched slightly as the nail broke skin, but meekly tilted his head to give the demon more room to feed. 

It sent a shiver down Eiji’s spine. 

Eiji felt as though he were going mad – calculating as the serpent was, the sheen of its scales was typically seen out of the corner of one’s eye. It was a grimace quickly masked by an innocent little laugh, the way he could see the cogs working in Ash’s brain even as he masked his anxiety with a perfectly timed yawn. 

It was the madness of a man chasing after a cryptid, desperate to find some logic in the misshapen footprints in the soil or the peculiar sounds that carried on the night wind.

* * *

Eiji was startled out of a nap by rhythmic thudding coming from the kitchen. 

_Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk…_  

Rubbing the gunk from his eyes, Eiji stretched the lingering remnants of sleep from his limbs before padding softly over to the kitchen to investigate. 

_Since when does Ash cook?_

Ever since they had moved into the apartment, it was an unspoken agreement that much of the cooking be left in Eiji’s more adept hands. If the number of carry-out bags in the garbage was any indication, Ash seemed to subsist on fries, nachos, and anything else that lacked nutritional value when left to his own devices. The telltale smell of salt and grease drifting into their bedroom often drew Eiji out of a nap well before Ash had even made a sound. 

“I already ate” quickly became Eiji’s least favorite phrases. 

_“But Ash, I actually_ like _to cook for you!” Eiji had explained what must have been a dozen times._ _“I_ _would much rather make food for you than have you eat…. that stuff, all the time. It’s not healthy for you to eat it so much.”_  

_“Calories are calories, it doesn’t matter,” was all Ash had to say._ _“I’ve_ _kept myself alive this long - I know what I’m doing.”_  

Hearing Ash preparing food for himself made Eiji smile. Perhaps his words had gotten through after all. 

Emerging out of the hallway, he was met with Ash silhouetted against the kitchen window, an array of produce on the counter… and a take-out bag placed on the kitchen table. Steam rose tantalizingly from the top, making Eiji’s stomach growl quietly in his gut – Ash must have just bought it before he got home. 

Yet it might as well have been roadkill, for all the attention that Ash paid to it. Indeed, all his attention was focused on his current task – so much so, in fact, that even his acute senses hadn’t picked up on the fact that Eiji had woken up. 

Curiosity piqued, Eiji kept quiet – maybe Ash was trying to prepare some special kind of dinner? Was he embarrassed about being a poor cook? Had he gotten take-out in case he messed up?

_Thunk, thunk, thunk_ – Eiji could see now that it was the sound of a knife hitting a plastic cutting board. That explained the sound from earlier. 

Eiji stared, and then tried _n_ _ot_ to stare, as Ash methodically cut a banana into slices that grew impossibly thinner each time. 

_Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two…_  

With surgical precision, he sliced the fruit into perfectly equal slices before sectioning them into four separate sections. He tallied some unknown quantity on his fingers before adding four cherry tomatoes and some baby carrots. 

More tallying. 

He took a celery stalk and chopped that into four pieces as well. 

More tallying, this time with a peculiar sense of panic. 

“Hundred divided by four…. twenty-five each. Fifteen each makes forty. Plus another four is forty-four, then four….” Ash murmured to himself as he continued ticking off his fingers. 

There was a frantic edge in Ash’s voice that made a tendril of unease wind around Eiji’s heart. He had heard Ash make plans countless times, commanding his gang with the calm, unwavering authority of a king. He hadn’t so much as flinched when Arthur held a knife to his throat, hadn’t hesitated to toss aside his gun to protect Eiji and Skipper in what felt like another lifetime. 

Yet something as mundane as chopping vegetables had Ash muttering numbers to himself like a madman. 

The fond warmth from earlier evaporated like vapor. 

Rummaging through the cabinets, Ash pulled out four tiny plastic cubes, each with its own corresponding lid. In each cube, he placed one of the sections of the banana, a cherry tomato, a quartered celery stalk, and a baby carrot. 

“Okay, if I cut one in half…” 

Ash took two baby carrots, cutting each in half before placing each half in cubes. 

“Fifty.” 

Ash let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair shakily. 

“That should do it.” 

With a satisfied little grin, Ash stacked three of the cubes on top of one another and placed them in a small cooler tucked in the corner of the fridge. Eij had seen it for weeks and paid it no mind – he’d simply assumed it carried alcohol or some other illicit goods that Ash felt embarrassed to let Eiji know he’d obtained.  Kicking the door closed behind him, he grabbed the bag of take-out, nearly bulging with the fruits of his labors. He paced around the kitchen, wafting the steam about and filling the apartment with the heavy smell of fast food- 

-and tossed the bag into the garbage. He placed the cube he’d left on the kitchen table, and fished out a wafer-thin slice of banana with a fork. 

He chewed it with a bizarre look of concentration, eyes raised to the ceiling as though he trying to remember something tucked into the back of his memory. It was only when Eiji saw him count through his fingers twice that he realized Ash was counting out precisely twenty chews before he swallowed the bite. 

Slice, twenty, swallow. 

Slice, twenty, swallow. 

A quarter of a banana took him nearly twenty minutes to consume. 

Eiji felt as though he’d been dipped into a bath of ice. As Ash ate his meager snack, the smell of fast food filling Eiji’s nostrils, he found himself wandering into the bathroom silently. 

_“Calories are calories - it doesn’t matter.”_  

It had only been a second, but Eiji couldn’t forget the way Ash had smiled as he’d tossed the fast food into the bin.  

It was a glimpse of the serpent winding its tail around Ash’s throat with an almost lewd sense of propriety, the narrow slits of its pupils visible just beneath the veneer of jade. That smirk was filled with something closer to undiluted malice, Satan smirking with relish as sinners screamed in agony. 

It was the satisfaction one might expect of a man waltzing away from a homicide with nary a trace of evidence to tie him to it.

* * *

Later that night, lacking a way to articulate his concerns to Ash, Eiji brings his camera to the kitchen. 

He took out the cooler, arranging the little cubes into a row on the counter. He made sure to include the garbage pail in the shot, its lid open to reveal weeks’ worth of wasted food piled on top of one another. 

Neat, tidy, orderly. Restraint. Twenty bites, the tapping of molars against one another as they chew on air. Fifty calories. The memory of that husky voice rattling off numbers seared into his memory. 

He can see it now - a portrait in spartan shades of black and white, monochrome draining the vegetables of any color or gaiety. Even through the picture, he can still smell the after-aroma of fast food gone rancid. 

_Click_. 

In the notepad on his phone, he can’t help but laugh bitterly as a title comes to him – it’s almost obscene in its irony. 

_ “Appetites”.  _


	3. The Space In Between (Freeday!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small note for clarity: _(( Spooky dark thoughts blah blah blah ))_ is meant to convey the voice of his so-called Reaper, the voice of his eating disordered brain, whatever you wish to call it.

There was a reaper lurking around the periphery of Ash’s awareness. It rubbed his back soothingly as he bent over the toilet, gut spasming and throat burning as though he’d purged fire instead of ramen. Its fingers caressed along his spine, a bony trail of marble that grew more prominent by the day. Indeed, Ash had often caught the way Eiji’s fingers paused over his back, the way his hands touched the bones delicately, with a slight tremble… as if afraid of what they felt.      

The Reaper was equal parts cruel and kind. The same voice that fed him comforting words of assurance could easily turn venomous, mocking him for being so weak. He had his rules, as dear to him as a priest and his holy book - how dare he give in to a weak human body. 

He often found himself staring in the mirror, knowing on a logical level that his eyes were green, his hair blonde, skin fair and prone to freckling. He knew that this boy he saw could be nobody else but him.  

Ash pressed his hands lightly to his face as he stared at his reflection, marveling that the being before him was the one feeling the press of whorled fingertips against its skin, that the world went dark the same moment the boy blinked. He knew that this body was his own personal vessel - an amalgamation of meat and calcium, a messy and flawed vehicle to charter his soul. It was a fusion of flesh that nature had decided should be molded in a way that others found pleasing.  

This beautiful man-child that tilted his head, that mirrored his motions… that _couldn't_ be him.  

_Who is that?_  

The Reaper gave him a playful peck on the cheek, a mother chiding their wayward child for losing themselves in wishful thinking.  

_(( Who else could it be but you, little Aslan. Look at what a fine specimen you are. ))_  

Ash almost laughed at the idea - as if he would know what mothers did.   

_A fine specimen, my ass._  

He was Pandora’s box, a pretty box with beautiful wrapping paper hiding raw viscera, dripping with entrails and tar. If he stared at his own face long enough, he felt as though his eyes would give away too much, that glimpse of the Reaper might show in the sheen of its scythe or the way his smile would slacken at the edges, as though a screw had been loosened.  

Already, he felt as though the mask were slipping far too often. It was evident in the way Eiji’s gaze met his when he ate dinner, as though trying to piece together a puzzle neither were willing to address. It was the way Max chided him about his so-called rabbit food - though the first times had been with a playful exasperation, the mirth had slowly drained from it until something approaching sincere concern colored the familiar banter.  

The Reaper tsked in Ash’s ear as he brushed his teeth, scrubbing the taste of mustard out of his mouth.  

_(( And you know better than to give my presence away. Nobody can protect you like I can. ))_  

Ash Lynx was as much of a myth as the boogeyman beneath the bed. He was only Aslan, the terrified child cowering beneath stained sheets and reeking of another man’s vice. He was simply a hollow being comprised of skin and bone, filled with demons that sucked the marrow from his bones and supped on his blood. Indeed, he felt himself closer to a ghost - a spirit condemned to haunt a ruined vessel, one that learned the art of drifting away from his prison of flesh while perverts cannibalized it whole.  

_If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands and two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire._  

Would that he was able to forsake the vile vessel entirely. 

* * *

Starvation, Ash had learned, was the closest approximation he assumed one could have of existing in the world as a living ghost. It was the same lightness, the freedom of living as a balloon loosely gripped in the hands of an easily distracted child.  

It was dangerous, it was _exhilating_ _-_ he’d never known he had masochistic tendencies until he understood what it was that gave him such dark pleasure, of feeling the sweet burn of hunger and coasting on it.  

Starvation, he’d learned, felt almost like a sort of divinity - his body was a tool in which he could live purely within his own mind. When he narrowed his focus to the calories in a peach or handful of tomatoes, when he spent hours doing calisthenics while Eiji slept nearby… he could _forget_.  

Ash drifted through the world, his stomach blissfully hollow and untainted - he felt so fucking clean, purified. Him, the perennial whore… _clean_. Hunger pangs rolled through him like a call to prayer, and as if in response, he felt a rush of dizziness as he sat up too quickly - _((_ _always so hasty, you know you can’t get up so fast ))_.  

It was the pleasure of being superhuman, of needing nothing and no one. He was untouchable, he existed on delicate foods while a mere mortal relied on vile fare to exist.  

Indeed, it was hunger itself that he craved. It was better than any high he could have asked for, the way in which the world tipped and tilted, the way he teetered on the edges of consciousness as he ran on vapors.  

Sometimes his body tested his resolve. He remembered well the morning he had awoken with his legs cramping, his mind not so much lightly misted in hunger as covered in a dense fog of starved nausea. The Reaper had been particularly affectionate that morning, and for the first time, its intimate proximity had terrified him.  

He had glanced over at Eiji, willing the boy not to wake up as he half-crawled to the fridge, the twenty steps feeling humiliating herculean.  

_(( No more fasting for you, Aslan. The point isn’t to die, after all. ))_  

The point was to flirt with death, playing recklessly along the edge of the cliff and daring Him to push you over Himself. Ash was reminded of a novel from years ago, the naive aspirations of a teen boy to spend his days saving innocent children from running off a cliff. What a poor, stupid catcher - how unaware he was that some of the children craved the suicidal thrill.  

He craved the punishment. He craved the way his body protested it, pleading like a child. Ever the cruel dictator, he would smile at the weak vessel as it pled its case - hands trembling, the sunken desperation around his eyes if he examined them closely.  

He enjoyed kicking it in the stomach, telling it to endure.  

_I do not need. I do not want._  

_I am more than my body. I am stronger._  

_I need nothing._


	4. Blood / Guns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small note for clarity: _(( Spooky dark thoughts blah blah blah ))_ is meant to convey the voice of his so-called Reaper, the voice of his eating disordered brain, whatever you wish to call it.
> 
> Also, credit where it's due: the quote at the beginning is from Aimee Liu, who has written extensively about eating disorders. I highly recommend her book _[Gaining](https://www.amazon.com/Gaining-Truth-About-Eating-Disorders/dp/B002IT5OXO)_ , as it offers a lot of various testimonies of those with eating disorders - particularly older women, men, and/or POC that defy the typical archetypes of what EDs look like.

**_Eating disorders are like a gun that's formed by genetics, loaded by a culture and family ideals, and triggered by unbearable distress._   **    

Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Ash let out a scoff and set aside yet another book into the pile.  

_Eating disorder. Is that what's wrong with me?_

The words themselves carried their own weight that felt at once like absolution and a honeyed lie.  

How wonderful it would feel to have a neutral, scientific term to give a name to the way numbers tied a noose around his throat, the way he yearned to starve, the desperate need to control his body down to the very workings of its biology. His mind craved logic and order, to understand the riddle of why this visceral need overrode every survival instinct in him. 

What a relief, he imagined, to know that his own private island of madness was but one in a nation of the equally insane. Citizens of the same hell, dwellers of the same bizarre universe.  

The Reaper peered over his shoulder, reading the text and giving its own opinion with a derisive laugh.  

_(( What a convenient excuse._ _‘Anorexia’?_ _Please. Leave that to dumb broads that go on a crash diet gone wrong. No… what we’re doing is far more elegant than that. ))_  

_I restrict my intake to 500 calories a day. I make myself sick if I go past it. There’s nothing elegant about barfing up your fucking meals._  

The Reaper’s attention shifted to Ash’s expression as the blonde mulled the words over in his head. It must not have liked what it saw, for its typically languid expression sharped into a sneer.  

_(( Is that what I am? A mental illness? What does that make you, then, that you listen to me and talk to me? ))_  

Ash thumbed through the pages, ignoring the jab at a question he’d agonized over time and time again.  

_Mental illness is just that - it’s an illness. I didn’t ask for it any more than I asked to get the flu, or asked for it when they-_  

Shaking his head, Ash refused to finish that sentence.  

The Reaper ran a hand through Ash’s hair with proprietary ease. It felt disturbingly real, though he knew that none of the other library patrons could see the skeletal digits or his reading partner in general. The gesture made the hairs of his neck stand on end - there was a certain roughness in the caress that made his nerves thrum with the premonition of danger.  

_(( You’re just a fucking whore, Aslan. It’s so easy to absolve yourself of responsibility._ _‘Woe_ _is me, I have scars, I have trauma.’ You’re disgusting. ))_  

Ash took off his glasses, pressing the heel of his palms against his closed eyes. Swirling visions of color mingled with black, the library dissolving away as the Reaper’s voice rang loud and clear amidst the void.  

He willed the Reaper to be quiet - yet as nurturing as the demon could be, Ash knew it was even more capable of being cruel. In fact, he knew from the decadent pleasure in its tone that it reveled in cradling his heart in its hands before crushing it into a bloody pulp.  

A perfect sadist, paired so well with an unwitting masochist.  

_(( Every time Eiji holds you, I bet he can smell the piss and semen all over you. You’re even lower than a prostitute  - they’re at least smart enough to get paid. Your body is just a toilet. ))_  

He felt the whisper of a kiss against his cheek, soft and swift like the caress of a blade; he sensed the gentleness with which the Reaper pulled his hand from his face, placing a single bullet shell reverently in his hand.  

_(( Here’s a bullet for your precious metaphor. Let’s see how long it takes for the chambers to fill. ))_

* * *

“I’m just gonna take a quick shower, I gotta wash the funk off of me,” Ash remarked with a leisurely wave of his hand. Eiji gave a vague noise of assent, his back towards Ash. His arms were still elbow-deep in soapy water as he scrubbed the dishes, and Ash knew by now that he’d likely be occupied for at least another fifteen minutes.  

He tried to ignore the way Eiji’s hearty katsudonsat heavily in him, the usually flat plane of his belly bulging ever so slightly. Unaccustomed to digesting so much meat and carbohydrates, his stomach made embarrassing squelching noises that sickened him - it felt so grotesque that food should make itself so obvious.  

_(( When you eat disgusting foods, your body makes disgusting noises. That’s the sound of blubber being fused to your bones. ))_  

It was illogical - one needed to consume at 3,500 additional calories to gain just a pound.  

_But just in case, just in case…_  

It was a long-familiar ritual by now.  

Step one - Ash drummed his fingers along the ridge of his clavicle, feeling for the familiar hardness of the bone jutting from his flesh. Step two - he wrapped a hand around his wrist, breathing a small sigh of relief when his thumb and middle finger met in a perfect circle around the joint. Step three - he then tested the ring on his finger, ensuring that it slid on and off with the same ease as before.  

He hadn’t gained anything. He hadn’t caused any damage yet.  

Closing the door behind him, Ash turned on the shower full blast. While he hated wasting so much water, the thunderous sound was a necessity to avoid unnecessary questions.  

Ash considered the heaviness of the meal, the fact that noodles were a bitch to get rid of.  

_Just to play it safe._  

He fished around in the medicine cabinet, moving around the pill bottles silently until he found the little tan bottle tucked innocuously in the corner. Screwing his eyes up in preparation, he took a quick swig of ipecac… 

….and shuddered violently as an intensely saccharine flavor assaulted his tongue. No matter how many times he’d used it, Ash could never get over how goddamn  _awful_ it tasted. Thankfully, it was potent and required small doses - he’d learned through disastrous trial and error that two tablespoons were his limit unless he wanted to feel like gutted roadkill the next day.  

He set a towel down in front of the toilet, cushioning his knees from the hard tile floor.  

_(( Need a pillow for your little throne, princess? ))_  

Ash ignored Him. It was easier to focus when he wasn’t distracted by grout digging into his skin, and the overwhelming heat of the steam from the shower was already enough to make him feel just a little unwell, a little nauseous.  

He took a deep breath, privately apologizing to Eiji for wasting his time cooking such a time-intensive meal before finding that sweet spot with two of his fingers.  

A quiet gag as his body protested in vain, the hands of the Reaper patting him consolingly on his back as tears ran down his face. He wasn’t sure if it was a natural biological reaction, or something else. Ash didn’t have enough energy left in him to particularly care.  

_(( There you go. Good boy. Get it all out. ))_  

When Ash saw the telltale purple grape juice he’d chugged before dinner, he wiped his mouth with some toilet paper and flushed his entrails down the drain. 

Getting off his knees, Ash rested his palms against the rim of the sink, letting his body sway with the familiar dizziness and shivers that always settled over his body afterward. His stomach was sore but empty…. so blissfully fucking _hollow_.  

Not a toilet. Not a receptacle for whatever one wished to toss into it.  

His body was his own. He was the ruler of his own personal hell - who better to punish than the sinner himself? The spots dancing in front of his eyes, the wicked burn in his throat - they were badges of dubious honor. 

Even Eiji couldn't reach him when he wandered this deeply into the woods. In the lush depths of the forest, the unforgiving winter winds cradled him like a mother. The woods were his playground; like a child, Ash played hide-and-seek between decaying trees. 

_Come find me, if you can._ People knew better than to wander into the woods, where desperate carnivores with hungry eyes lurked in the shadows. 

_(( But not you, little lamb. You learned the value of making peace with them. ))_

He scrubbed his hands thoroughly with soap before filling a plastic cup with water to swish some of the vile aftertaste out of his mouth. He had the cup halfway to his lips when the sight in the mirror stopped him cold. The cup of water clattered onto the floor, but the sound barely registered as a very different kind of iciness settled into his bones - not the blessed chill of an empty receptacle, but frozen claws of mortal terror.  

The scleras of his eyes were blood-red.  

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he heard a terrified scream echo off the tile walls.  

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he sensed rather than saw the Reaper tuck another bullet shell in his hand.  

_(( How many more would you like me to add before you’re ready to play Russian Roulette? ))_


	5. Self-Harm / Violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small note for clarity: _(( Spooky dark thoughts blah blah blah ))_ is meant to convey the voice of his so-called Reaper, the voice of his eating disordered brain, whatever you wish to call it.

“Is that all you’re eating?”         

Five words, each like a drop of icy water down Ash’s spine.  

Ash speared a leaf of lettuce with his fork, coating it with a light sheen of vinaigrette before swirling it idly along the china plate. It made a grating sound as metal scraped along the surface, and he saw the way Max’s face twitched with irritation out of the corner of his eye.  

“I gotta watch my figure, don’cha know,” he replied breezily, sliding the leaf delicately off the tines with his teeth.  

Max pinched the bridge of his nose, brow furrowed as he appeared to mull over his next words. There was a layer of concern in Max’s tone that made the Reaper raise its scythe defensively, aligning the curved blade along the slender column of Ash’s throat.  

_(( Mind your words, old man. ))_  

“I think it’s a bigger issue than that,” the veteran answered carefully. He took a bite from his burger, and Ash’s mind worked like an abacus as it calculated the numerical summation of its parts -  _150 calories, 4 calories, 10 calories, 50 calories…_  

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Ash lied, voice dripping with sarcastic sweetness. He fished out a cucumber from the bed of leafy vegetables, stabbing it with a bit more force than necessary. He willed his hand to stop shaking, willed the Reaper to lower its blade -  _act nervous, and he’ll know._ He could feel the way the demon held its breath, daring Max to continue.  

_This is your apartment. You have the upper hand. He has to behave._  

“Stop it, Ash. I’m not stupid.”  

“Stop what?”  

Max slammed his fist on the table in frustration, letting out a sound halfway between a sob and a sigh. To Ash’s shock, the gaze that met his was watery, a breath away from weeping - it was a far cry from the frustration that usually followed their typical stubborn exchanges.  

“You’re….  _something_ is going on with you, Ash. I don’t know why, but you’re not eating and you’re making yourself  _sick_.”  

_(( Goddammit. ))_  

_Shit._ His heart pattered a little more quickly in his chest, a rabbit tapping its foot rapidly against the ground as a precursor to full-fledged panic.   

“That’s bullshit,” Ash retorted. “There’s nothing going on.” He tried to hide the terrified tremor in his voice, to mask it with far more venom than the man deserved.  

“Eiji seems to think otherwise.”  

Ash felt the blood draining from his face. The fork dropped from lax fingers that had gone numb, yet all he could hear was the Reaper hissing in his ear.  

_(( You’ve ruined him. Typical gutter whore, smearing shit on everyone and everything, you — ))_  

“What did he say?” the blond asked quietly.  

“He believed, at first, that you were _dying_. That was his reasoning for why someone would barely eat, why they can’t keep down their meals. You should have seen him, Ash. He-” Max’s voice hitched, and guilt nestled itself into Ash’s ribs like a knife - “he asked me if maybe _chong-bee_ -” 

“ _Congee_ ,” Ash corrected him miserably. He remembered the rice porridge Eiji had made for him, seasoned delicately with green onions and bonito flakes.  

“It is just rice with water. Healthy and simple… good for the digestion,” Eiji had explained when Ash sniffed inquisitively at the mixture on his spoon.  

_(( Rice and water are good. They’re simple. Fish flakes and onions are not heavy foods. ))_  

_It’s more water than anything. Maybe a cup of rice tops. 150 if you account for toppings as well. That’s okay, isn’t it?_  

_(( You’ve been good the past few days - this will be fine. ))_  

He hadn’t understood why Eiji had smiled so blissfully as Ash nursed it the entire night, nor his palpable relief when Ash had set down the empty bowl and laid down on the couch instead of making a beeline to the bathroom. He remembered relishing the sensation of a stomach free from acid-sharp hunger pangs, of rare and blessed  _warmth_ as its threads suffused him.  

He’d fallen asleep easily that night, content as a milk-drunk infant.  

“He asked me if  _congee_ might help. Eiji said that in in his country, they often feed it to people that are sick…. when they can’t handle anything heavier,”  Max finished. Max ran a hand through his hand with a sigh, his half-eaten burger forgotten on the plate. There was a pregnant silence following his words, and it took Ash’s mind a few seconds to rewind back to the present day.  

“You said ‘at first’,” Ash ventured hesitantly, monitoring Max’s expression. It remained infuriatingly neutral, the mask of an opponent who refused to give away his intentions.  

Max fished out his phone, finger swiping across the screen a few times before finding what he was looking for. He held it out to Ash.  

“Read from there.”  

Max’s voice was deceptively callous - though he tried, his ice-blue eyes were far too glassy, his calloused hands shaking like a leaf. He looked a few moments shy of coming unraveled, and the cause wasn’t someone that Ash could beat the snot out of because it was the same piece of shit fussing over a plate of lettuce.  

Ash felt a lump rise in his throat as that guilt, acute as a knife wound, shifted into full-blown shame. For once, he couldn’t think of an acerbic remark to salvage his pride as he silently took Max’s phone.  

It was a series of texts from Eiji, and the further he scrolled down the conversation, the more Ash felt bile rise in his throat.  

A picture of three tiny plastic cubes, filled with a spartan array of vegetables.  

A series of texts from Eiji, bereft of the endearing cacophony emojis that typically littered his conversations.    

 

> _“Ash is lying about what he eats and how much.”     _

> _“He is sick again. It does not matter what or when he eats.”_  
>    
> 

Another picture, this time with that damning bottle of ipecac syrup tucked in front of the little cubes. Beneath that, another series of texts that grow increasingly more emotional.  

 

> _“In Japan, there was a term for people that do not eat on purpose, kyoshokushou. I do not know the word in English. I think Ash is sick in a way that medicine cannot help.”  _
> 
>  
> 
> _“I have no idea what to do. I cannot help Ash if he tells me nothing.”_  

 

> _ “He did not make himself sick after congee. This seems to be okay.”  _

  
Ash felt as though a wave had crashed over him. He tried to breathe, tried to expand his lungs past the band of iron trapping his chest. He felt as though Max were trying to get his attention, but his mind was shrieking much too loudly for it to register as more than muffled syllables.  

_He knew I was making myself sick._  

_He knew I wasn’t eating._  

_He knew, he knew, he knows, he knows…_  

_(( I bet you_ wanted _him to notice, you attention whore. You want him to just coddle you and go,_ _‘Oh_ _baby, it’s okay, I’ll help you’. Pathetic. ))_  

_No, no, I_ didn’t _w_ _ant him to know, why would I-_  

“Ash, are you okay? C’mon kid, talk to me.” 

_(( Because you still feel like you deserve to be saved. You don’t. You’re disgusting, corrupted beyond compare. ))_  

_I don’t -_  

_(( All you can do right is sucking a fat fuck’s cock or make yourself barf. That’s all you’re good for. ))_  

He sensed rather than truly felt his head awash with a floating sensation; all he could hear was a peculiar sort of ringing through ears that felt as though they’d been stuffed with cotton. He once again had the bizarre impression being more of a spirit than a body, feeling as though his soul itself was trying to flee from the vessel it dwelt in.  

The image in front of him become fuzzy, darkness creeping around the periphery.   

“Ash!  _Ash_!” 

Unbidden, he had the mental image of a puppet with a pair of scissors opened threateningly near the translucent strings.  

_Go ahead._  

He welcomed the delicate sound of the strings being sniped, the subsequent darkness that followed.

* * *

Ash felt himself drifting slowly from unconsciousness like a waterlogged corpse, body floating towards the surface with sluggish reluctance.  

Like always, his brain was far quicker to react than his body - he had experienced this sensation countless times before.  

_Remain still. Ascertain your surroundings._  

Two voices coming from each side - one gruff and comfortingly masculine, reminding him of worn leather; the other was also male, airy and lilting like a singing bird. 

His left hand encased in a rough warmth, a welcome reprieve from the otherwise prevalent chill that made his body feel like it was made of ice. He felt thin layers of cloth on top of him, felt a soft pad against his back and plush cushions behind his head, at the nape of his neck.  

Sheets, pillows, a mattress - he was in a bed. But why?  

“Ash? You awake?” 

Gruff and leather - Ash finally recognized this one as Max. He forced himself to make what he imagined to be a sleepy sound before settling deeper into pillows at the nape of his neck.  

A tired laugh.  

“Guess it was too much to hope for.”  

The birdsong voice answered with a melancholy note, and Ash felt a thread of disquiet settle into his bones - Eiji. He sounded so  _sad…._ and as his memory started to trickle in, he knew that he was the reason for it, for the tiredness etched into both their voices.  

_I’m such an asshole._  

“I used to get really mad at him, you know," Eiji murmured. "Ash is impossible in the morning, I have had to carry him out of bed so much.”  

He let out sound that must have been an aborted attempt at a laugh, for it became strangled halfway through and twisted into a sob.  

“So many things I noticed, but I did not piece it together. ‘Wow, he weighs next to nothing.’ ‘He has such low blood pressure.’ ‘He is so picky with food.’ ‘Why is the shower on if I hear the toilet flushing?’ I feel like I should have figured it out sooner.” 

Ash felt calloused fingers run fondly through his bangs, and it took everything he has not to screw his face up into the wail that threatens to erupt out of him. How long had it been since he’d felt the soothing touch of an adult? And here he was,  _worrying_ the two men he cared about because- 

_(( Because you’re disgusting. You destroy the lives of everyone you touch like some fucked-up version of Midas. You should have just done the right thing and put a bullet between your eyes instead of Shorter. ))_  

Max let out a long sigh, seeming to collect his thoughts, and replied, “To be fair, it’s not… as common with guys. That’s not where your mind immediately goes. I can’t speak for what it’s like in Japan, but over here, most folks hear ‘anorexia’ or ‘bulimia’ and have this mental image of some pretty white girl eating rabbit food because her boyfriend thinks she’s fat.”  

He recognized the warmth around his hand to be Max’s as it gives his own a light squeeze. By comparison, his own fingers feel about as fragile as glass. The idea of hands that have wielded a knife or gun feeling so insubstantial strikes him as odd, as though he were an alien chauffeuring a foreign vessel.  

He remembered the horror he’d felt as he’d glanced in the mirror to find his eyes were fucking red. He remembered through the veil of panic a deceptively bland line of text in a medical book - _physical signs of an eating disorder include b_ _roken blood vessels in the eyes or face from repeated purging.  _

It hadn’t mentioned that he would look like a vision out of hell. That the Reaper with the scythe would laugh at how perfect he looked - _((_ _finally, the outside matches the inside! ))_  

“But…. I think back on the guys in my crew, back in Iraq. There were one or two of ‘em that, looking back now, I’m realizing that they did _the same shit_ that Ash does. But again, ‘that’s a woman’s problem’ so you just chalk each individual thing to them being weird. You don’t really think to look at the bigger issue. Hell, half of us were smug enough to think having PTSD was because you were too much of a pussy to deal with the realities of war.”  

The older man let out a bitter bark of a laugh, devoid of any real mirth.  

“Then I come back from killing people every day in the desert,  _so_ goddamn well-adjusted to civilian life that I punch a cop. I was convinced his car had a bomb in it. 'He looks like the motherfucker that blew up Adam into a million pieces.’ Landed myself in prison, lost my wife 'n kid. You know the rest. 

Griff couldn’t handle the war and ended up using drugs that made him lose his goddamn mind. I couldn’t handle either, apparently just as much of a ‘pussy’ as the guys we used to make fun of. Those two with the so-called ‘food issues’ couldn’t either.”  

“ _Any_ kind of war is terrible,” Eiji reiterated softly. “Whether it is in a desert or other places, smaller ones. From what I have seen, gangs in this city have their own wars that they fight.”     

The hand in Ash's hair ruffled it softly, reminding him of the innocent decade when Griffin would do the same as Ash drifted into sleep. It felt grounding… it felt _safe_.  

“Ultimately, you’re at the whims of someone with more money and power who doesn’t give a shit about the underlings on the front line. You have no say. For those two guys in my unit, something stupid like food was probably one thing that could distract their focus, give them a sense of logic or control. So I think on that and…. well. Yeah. The poor kid’s been through hell. Something in his brain convinced him that it makes sense to focus on something stupid and easy. Easier to just count calories or make yourself sick rather than deal with the elephant in the room.”   

Eiji sighed quietly, and Ash felt the bed beside him dip with pressure.  

“Sometimes with Ash, I feel like I see him but it is not  _truly_ him. Like when he lies to me, when he throws away food when he thinks I do not know… it is almost like he is a machine. Or rather… there is someone else speaking through him. It reminds me of someone possessed by a  _yokai_. It is just a superstition, but I cannot help but think of that.”  

Max tested the foreign words on his tongue, asking the question Ask couldn’t. “A _yo_ …. _kai_?” 

“A demon.”  

Ash felt the word surge through him like electricity, unnerved by how accurate it was. How fitting, how appropriate of a word to label the strange way in which he felt as though this voice carried him through life like its vessel.  

“At times, I wish it were something that easy. I do not think this is something that one can just…. get rid of, exorcize.”  

_(( Oh, isn’t he such a little poet. Calling me a_ demon  _\- I bet that makes you feel better that you’re free from any responsibility. ))_  

Ash wondered, briefly, if he could trust them with this demon that dwelt in his bones. Both spoke of it, hedged around it with the caution one skirted the edges of a rabid beast.  

_(( Don’t you dare. Just because they make excuses for you doesn’t change who you really are. You’re just pus and piss and semen and every bit of offal one would just as soon flush down the drain. ))_  

_Of course. I was stupid to even consider it._  

_(( I accept you because I know these things. The second they see it, they’ll hate you. I promise I only do these things because sometimes, little Aslan, you need someone to remind you of how vile you really are._ _))_  

* * *

If he noticed the way Eiji’s lips set into a thin line when he went to the bathroom like clockwork, Ash ignored it.  

He turned on the shower like always, bending over the toilet and pressing a fist into his gut to aid in the process. There’s hardly a need; he's long since realized with a horrible sense of pride that he can simply the will the food to emerge with no more disgraceful supplication on his knees - _((_ _like a whore giving a blowjob ))_ \- and no more hideous sounds of retching as his body tries to cling to his food.  

It’s remarkably efficient when he has to eat in public. Nobody suspects a pair of legs in the stall to have a head bent silently between the knees, puking with little fanfare besides a quiet splash. All he has to do is simply dab away at glassy eyes, gargle some water and chew some spearmint gum. As simple and routine as a woman fixing her make-up after eating. Eat, purge, clean the evidence.  

_(( This is far more elegant, isn’t it? A gentle swish, a silent purge. Neat and orderly. ))_  

Ash agrees with the sentiment, even as he feels his vision dull to dangerous monochrome and he ends up collapsing on his knees regardless.  

_(( Ah, well, I spoke too soon. ))_  

To Ash’s surprise, he feels a hand rubbing soothingly at his back - not cold bone, sensed rather than physically manifest, but solid flesh against the marble outline of his spine.  

Looking over his shoulder, he’s horrified to see that it’s Eiji rubbing soothing circles on his back, like a mother comforting a sick child. He can’t interpret the expression on Eiji’s face, and that scares him even further.  

“I wish you would stop hurting yourself,” the Japanese boy sighs.  

_It’s what I deserve,_ Ash wants to answer.  

Instead, that weak little child nestled in his viscera speaks first.  

“I wish I could.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one came a few days late because I wanted it to work as a conclusion, and I wanted it to end in a satisfying (to me) way. I also felt that it was important to address how utterly fucking frustrating it is from the perspective of an outsider, who watches someone do these awful things without understanding why. It's very hard to really grok the mental state of someone with an ED unless you've lived it. 
> 
> Of course, this is **Angst Week** , so this doesn't mean it ends in a way that most would expect or want. 
> 
> I considered, for a while, giving Ash a chance to recover. But this isn't what the fic was really written for - unfortunately, even in canon, Ash acts in ways that illustrate that he has very low self-worth and chooses to die rather than seek help. To me, the demon that tells him to starve is born from a much deeper, visceral place of Self Hatred In General. Even if he starts to eat "normally", it doesn't cure the deeper drive that made it easy for him to develop an eating disorder. This same Voice is the same one, I imagine, that convinced him it was a good idea to simply bleed out in the library rather than save himself.


End file.
